


The Ghosts of Freud, Strasberg, McGonagall and Larkin

by GreyGardens



Series: Their Dark Desires [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bisexual Draco Malfoy, Complicated Relationships, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dark Past, Developing Relationship, Draco Malfoy is Bad at Feelings, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Baggage, Explicit Language, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Issues, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Love, Loving Hermione Granger, POV Draco Malfoy, Past Relationship(s), Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Snarky Draco Malfoy, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29827266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyGardens/pseuds/GreyGardens
Summary: Hermione has more questions after her last "session" with Draco.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Series: Their Dark Desires [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2182422
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	The Ghosts of Freud, Strasberg, McGonagall and Larkin

"You know," Draco said as he got comfortable on the black leather couch, "I've figured out why you insist on playing this silly game of yours instead of just giving me veritaserum like a normal witch. And it's _not_ just because you get a sick thrill from tearing me down."

"Oh?" Hermione asked, sitting down primly in the arm chair he was beginning to think of as hers, parchment and quill in hand. "And why is that?" 

"It's a challenge for you, like in school." He said, clasping his hands behind his head, leaning back into the plush couch cushions and closing his eyes. "I'm like a puzzle for you to solve, and you enjoy the hell out of that, don't you, Granger?" 

"Perhaps." She said, adopting her cool, detached doctor voice. "If that were the case, how would it make you feel?" 

"I dunno, Granger," he said slyly, "you're the doctor, why don't you tell me how _you_ think it makes me feel?" 

"Well, I wouldn't want to make any assumptions." She said.

"Why? Because you're afraid you might get it wrong?" He laughed. "Worried the ghost of McGonagall will appear and dock 10 points from Gryffindor because Hermione Granger, infallible genius, finally guessed incorrectly?" 

"No." She said, and he could tell from her voice that he'd hit a nerve. He smiled to himself, trying not to laugh. "It just wouldn't be very _professional_ of me."

"Oh, well, yes, of course, as a doctor you must remain professional at all times." He agreed in mock seriousness. 

"Yes." She said, scratching away on her parchment. "I appreciate your understanding."

"Certainly _,_ doctor." He said, a smile playing on the corner of his lips. "Though, I _must_ say that what you did to me at the end of our last session was rather _unprofessional_ of you. And the things you asked me to do to _you,_ doctor! Why, I think there were at least _three_ that are illegal. I really _must_ file that complaint with the board of ethics…" 

"Well," she said, maintaining the clinical air she had adopted, "as my patient, that is your right, and I will not stop you. But you might want to wait until after today's session is over."

"And why is that?" He asked with a smirk. 

"Because you may find that you need to add a few more pages to your complaint." She responded coolly, still scratching away with her quill. 

"I'd better." He grinned wickedly.

"So, tell me more about Benjamin." She prompted.

"Why?" He asked, genuinely confused.

"It seems that your relationship with him was an important one, after all, you _did_ say that you loved him." She pushed.

"I said I _thought_ that I loved him." He corrected her, feeling himself growing tense. 

"Okay, you _thought_ that you loved him." She amended. "That's still important. And I'm sure that there were quite a lot of feelings involved, which I know are difficult for you to manage. So, tell me more about Benjamin."

Draco let out a deep, long suffering sigh. This had bloody well better be worth it. Forget a complaint to the imaginary board of ethics, he'd better have material worthy of the Playwizard forum after this. He _never_ talked about Benjamin or that time in his life. "What do you want to know?" He asked guardedly.

"How did you meet him?" Her quill stalled as she waited for his response.

"Well, that's a rather boring and unoriginal question, Granger, but I'll take the bait." He replied dryly. "We met in the West End during the production of a play."

"Yes, that's right," she said, sounding genuinely interested, the detached manner slipping momentarily, frustrating him for reasons he couldn't quite explain, "you mentioned a theatre in the West End. Was Benjamin an actor? Was he performing in the play?" 

"We both were." He said emotionlessly, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of extracting any of the bloody feelings that she was so desperate to tease out of him.

"Really?" She asked, sounding surprised.

"Yes, really." He said, thinking about all the long hours spent rehearsing with Benjamin, the thrill he had gotten from performing, the deliciously heady rush that was better than any drug, and how gorgeous Benjamin had looked on opening night; sitting in his dressing room with his head in his hands, convinced that he would forget all his lines the moment he got on stage, until Draco had kissed him and told him that everything would be all right, as long as they were together. 

No, he wasn't giving her any of _that._ She could try and pry it out of him, but there were some things that even _she_ couldn't get from him for free. He would make her work for them. If she wanted to unlock any secret emotional depth she thought he had buried away, she would have to find the bloody key on her own. He wasn't giving it to her.

Knowing she would probably enjoy that even more was irritating, but somehow it still felt better than just willingly allowing her to cut him open so that all the pain he'd tried so hard to keep at bay his entire life could come flooding out; exposing him, staining everything it touched, destroying the relationship he was trying so bloody hard to build with her. 

"What did your parents think about your acting?" She asked. 

"They were fine with the acting," he said dryly, "what they _didn't_ approve of was _where_ I was acting or _who_ I was acting _with."_

"Oh? And why was that, do you think?" She asked, still scribbling away.

"I dunno, Granger," he drawled, "but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that the people I was working with were all muggles. I believe that was one of the words my _loving_ parents kept shouting whilst threatening to disinherit me, anyway." 

Hermione's quill went silent and neither one of them said anything for a minute that seemed to stretch for an eternity, until Hermione finally broke the silence. "So was Benjamin - "

"A muggle?" He finished for her. "Yes, he was. Why else do you think my parents hated him so much?" 

"I dunno," she said flustered, "because he was a boy I suppose."

"Well, yes," he admitted, "there was that too, but they got over it later on. It turns out that the idea of their only son and heir shagging men with no possibility of continuing on the _'bloodline'_ was okay as long as I wasn't _'bringing shame to the name of Malfoy'_ and _'contaminating and defiling'_ myself by letting a _'filthy muggle'_ be the one to do the shagging of their _'perfect pure-blood son.'_ In summary, as long as I wasn't with _Benjamin,_ they didn't care." 

"Wow." Hermione breathed. 

"Yeah," He said bitterly, "well, when the engagement to Pansy that they forced on me after ended in such spectacular fireworks, they seemed to finally realize that if they wanted a son who wasn't going to continually bring shame to them they had to be willing to bend a little and let me live my own bloody life. There's only so long you can trap someone in a box without them fighting their way out and I suppose that allowing me to discreetly go about my business was preferable to…" he trailed off, stopping himself, realizing he was giving too much away. Fuck, she had tricked him again.   
  
“Preferable to what?” She prompted.  
  
“Nothing.” He snapped. And the room went silent once more.

"Would you say that after Benjamin you began lashing out against your parents?" Hermione asked softly after a few moments. 

"What do you think, Granger?" He said with a frustrated sigh. 

"I think it sounds like you did," she said, her voice gentle, caring, yet somehow managing to cause him even more pain for all it’s kindness, "which would honestly be quite understandable, it sounds like they were horrible about him. You had a right to be upset and fight back against them separating you from someone that you loved." 

A lump rose in Draco's throat but he fought against it. She may have found a way to get all of _this_ out of him, but he wasn't giving her his tears too.

"But," she added, causing him to bristle in anticipation of what was to come next, "it sounds like you had started lashing out and rebelling against them even _before_ Benjamin." 

"What do you mean?" He asked. 

"Going to muggle London, spending time with muggles, working with them, _dating_ a muggle...with a family like yours, with their beliefs, with _your_ beliefs _\- "_

"People change, Granger." He snapped defensively. 

"I see that." She said softly. "Usually there is some form of catalyst that causes monumental shifts in belief such as yours, would you say that there was something like that in your life that caused you to change?"

Tears burned his eyes and he squeezed them tightly to try and keep them from falling. 

"Draco?" She said, her voice suddenly seeming to come from much further away than the arm chair across the room. 

"Yes." He said, his voice barely above a whisper, which still echoed much too loudly in his head in the tense, silent room.

"What was it?" She asked.

A tear slid down his cheek and he brushed it away roughly with the back of his hand. Fuck this. Fuck everything about this. It felt as though she had his heart in her hands and was squeezing it, crushing it. Why was she doing this? Of _course_ she had to know. There was no way she _didn't_ know. So why was she doing this to him? Was it punishment? If it was he knew he deserved it, but fuck, he hadn't agreed to _this._ Another tear slid treacherously down his cheek. 

"Draco?" She prompted, a note of concern in her voice.

"The bloody battle of Hogwarts, Granger, what do you _think?"_ He snapped, angry with her for succeeding in reopening wounds that he'd never had a chance to truly heal from. All the excruciatingly painful emotional wounds that had cut him deeper than even Potter's sectumsempra curse, and had left much worse scars, even if they were invisible. 

"Oh." She said and then fell silent. 

As the silence grew and filled the room once more Draco wished that she would pick up her blasted quill again and start writing more of her infuriating little secret notes, anything to break the unbearable silence, even if he was unwilling to do anything to shatter it himself.

But she didn't. And the silence continued to grow louder. 

Fuck, he was going to have to do it himself. 

"'They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had and add some extra, just for you.'" Draco recited into the silence, saying the first thing that came to him, a feeling of warmth suddenly spreading through his body at the familiar words.

"What?" She asked, interrupting him before he could continue, just as he hoped she would, her quill suddenly speeding across the parchment again. 

"Larkin. I'm surprised a swot like you doesn't know her Larkin." Draco scoffed.

"I do!" She cried, suddenly defensive at the thought of her intelligence being challenged. "I'm more surprised that _you_ do." 

"We used to recite it to each other." He said with a small smile, allowing himself to get lost in the memory for a moment. 

"You and Benjamin?" She pried, her quill going into overtime. 

"No, me and Josephine Titmarsh." He quipped sarcastically. 

"Did he teach you the poem?" She barrelled on, completely ignoring his attempt to distract her with humor.

"Yes." He said simply. Let her work for it.

"And you would recite it to each other?" She asked, her quill still flying across the parchment as she made rapid notes. He smirked to himself. At least it was better than talking about the bloody war. Thank Merlin he'd managed to get her off _that_ topic. Aside from it being a door he'd much prefer to keep closed, he'd also already learned the hard way that it was damned near impossible to get in the mood when he had images flashing through his mind of people he went to school with dying, and he was still hoping this horrible day could be saved by a good shag, damn it. 

"Yes." He said vaguely, still not giving much, just enough for her to play with and get distracted by.

"Why?" She asked. 

"I dunno, Granger, because we were bored?" He said, running his fingers through his hair, glad that he'd started the game out by closing his eyes through it from the first day; this was hard enough as it was, but if he had to _look_ at her, if she could see the emotion in his eyes, it would be so much worse, he couldn't handle _that._

"But why that poem?" Trust Granger to latch onto something as simple as a bloody _poem_ to try and find emotional depth in him. He could have laughed. "I mean, he could have taught you a thousand poems and you could have recited any one of them together for fun, so why _that_ one in particular?" She pressed. 

A memory of the night Benjamin first recited the poem came to him, pushing out the images of the nightmarish battle. He felt his body begin to relax again.

They’d met at the theatre after yet another huge row with his parents and had gone up to the roof to talk. That was the night he finally told Benjamin the truth about his parents and what they were really like, or at least as much as he could without breaking the statute of secrecy. 

He had been afraid. Afraid that no matter what he did, no matter how far he ran to try and escape it, he would always end up like them. That he was so fucked up and damaged that there was nothing else he _could_ be but exactly what they had raised and moulded him to be. That he was irredeemable and broken beyond repair. Nothing but a ticking time bomb and a danger to everyone around him.

He had broken down and cried, and Benjamin had recited that bloody poem, the one that made him realize, even with its inherent bitterness, that he wasn't alone, it wasn't his fault, and more importantly, that he could _change._ Or, if he _couldn't_ change, at the very least, he could break the cycle. After that, any time Draco had a row with his parents or one of his panic attacks about being doomed to become just like them, Benjamin had recited the poem again, until Draco had it memorized and could recite it along with him. It was one of the greatest gifts that anyone had ever given him.

"Draco?" Hermione prompted, startling him.

"Because it had the word 'fuck' in it." He lied, opening his eyes and turning his head to give her a smirk that he hoped would be just as disarming as always. 

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at him, letting out an agitated little sigh.

"What?" He asked, trying to hide his amusement. "We were idiots, we were seventeen, everyone is an idiot at seventeen - except for _you,_ I'm sure you were bloody perfect, of course…"

"No, I wasn't." She said. "But that isn't the point."

"Then what exactly _is_ the point?" He asked, sitting up and facing her, suddenly feeling completely fed up with her silly game, "what's the point of _all_ of this?"

"What do you mean?" She asked as she looked down and began scribbling with her infernal quill again. "All of what?"

"All of _this!"_ He exclaimed, his frustration bubbling to the surface. "The questions, the games, the prying, the judging and mocking and...and...just... _all of it!"_ He erupted. "Haven't I been punished enough?" 

"Punished?" She asked, shocked at his sudden outburst. 

"I was just a fucking _child."_ Draco said, his voice breaking on the word, his head in his hands to hide his face from her, to block out the world.

"I know…" she said, joining him on the couch, her voice soft and soothing, her warm, gentle hand rubbing his back as he finally broke down and cried. "I know...it's okay..."

"Fuck…" he said with a laugh a few minutes later, trying to lighten the heavy mood, "is that what real therapy is like? Who the _hell_ would pay for _that?_ I'm _definitely_ writing a strongly worded letter to the board of ethics."

"Well, I'm afraid you'll find that causing you to have an emotional breakthrough in your second session isn't grounds for me to have my license revoked." Hermione said with a sly smile. "But if you're determined to have something new to add to your growing list of complaints I'd be happy to oblige."

"Emotional breakthrough?" Draco scoffed. "Emotional breakdown is more like. Merlin, Granger, that really was a bit bloody much, don't you think?" 

"Perhaps," she conceded, "but it was good, it was _healthy,_ much healthier than bottling all of that up and letting it turn you into a pressure cooker waiting to explode."

"Ha!" Draco laughed in disbelief. "Sure, Granger, whatever helps you sleep at night. At least one of us will."

"Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?" She asked, her hand moving down to his upper thigh. "Anything that will help _you_ sleep tonight?" She squeezed slightly. 

"Hmmmm…" he hummed thoughtfully as her hand moved further up his thigh, finding what it was looking for, "I don't know...I'm pretty upset…" 

"I'm sure there must be _something_ I could do." She said, unbuckling his belt. 

"Well... _maaaaybe..."_ he drawled, glad she was now so focused on trying to make him feel good that she couldn't see the expression on his face. "But I'm sure you won't _want_ to do it..." He sighed in mock sadness, using all of his exceptional talent on the stage to fool her. 

"Anything." She said as she unzipped his trousers. "We'll do whatever you want." 

"Anything?" He asked, a wicked grin spreading across his face. 

"Anything." She repeated.

"Perfect!" He smirked. "Then I'll go up the road with that invite for old Josie!"

"No!" She exclaimed with a laugh, slapping his chest. 

"But _Graaanger,"_ he whined teasingly, _"you_ said we could do anything I _wanted,_ and I'm afraid that the only cure for my sadness is that cheeky threesome you keep denying me with my geriatric sweetheart, Josephine Titmarsh." 

"You're a ridiculous fool, Draco Malfoy." Hermione said, grinning up at him.

"And you _love_ it." He replied with a wink. 

"Yes," she said, taking his hand in hers and bringing it to her lips to kiss, melting his heart in the process and making him realize why she seemed to love it so bloody much when he did the same to her, "I do."  
  
He held her close to him and they stayed like that for quite a while. There would be plenty of time for her to make things up to him later on, for now, all he wanted or needed was to hold her. 

**Author's Note:**

> Excerpt from the iconic poem "This Be the Verse" by Philip Larkin is copyright the Estate of Philip Larkin. I claim no ownership or rights to this work, but I do recommend that you go read it in full because it's great.


End file.
